Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Wonderful Wednesday

Our day began with our weekly class meeting. During our group share I introduced the two TASS (thinking and academic success skills) skills for the second marking period. Over the next 9 weeks students will be thinking about the way they learn and incorporating evaluation (of resources, answers, ideas, etc.) into their learning. After that we exchanged compliments. Since there were no challenges, we skipped that part!

We jumped right into our math rotations after our meeting. The teacher rotation reviewed the idea that multiplication and division are inverse operations.

I captured and added two educreation lessons to the third grade web site. One is a lesson on solving word problems by identifying the knowns and unknowns, writing an equation and drawing a picture to solve it. The other is about the inverse relationship between multiplication and division.

The technology rotation had students visiting the Times Table Grid web site and discussing, with a partner, how to locate the answer on the multiplication table. Finally, the guided practice rotation involved students identifying various ways to share a given number, by drawing a picture and writing a related multiplication and division sentence for each.

There is a fact triangle worksheet for homework. Students can view today's lesson, on the third grade web site, to help them!

We began our reading and writing block by reviewing the characteristics of narrative poetry (has a beginning, middle and end, tells a story). We also reviewed the concept of figurative language being a tool writers use to make their writing more clear and interesting. Similes and metaphors and two types of figurative language that compare seemingly unsimilar objects or things.

After that we read a narrative poem, identified the beginning, middle and end and the theme (after reviewing what a theme is--authors inferred message or lesson).

Finally, I modeled how to plan a narrative poem by first choosing a theme and them identifying what will take place n the beginning, middle and end.

While I meet with small groups the children will work on assignments from yesterday and begin planning their own narrative poem.

Sharks: We reviewed chapter 1 and discussed how and why Gregory changed from the beginning to the end of the chapter. Then we read chapter 2. Tonight, for HOMEWORK, the students need to reread chapter 2 and draw the beginning, middle and end in their RRJ. We will use this to begin discussing sequence in reading group tomorrow.

Following lunch and outdoor recess the students continued working on independnet work while I met with more groups.

Dolphins: We practiced reading and writing our focus words. Then we reviewed page 10 and finished reading the book. For HOMEWORK the students need to reread pages 10-16 and write their focus words 3 times each in their RRJ.

Cheetahs: The students completed the two vocabulary entries using unknown words from chapter 1. We began reading chapter 2 together. For HOMEWORK they need to finish reading chapter 2 and draw the beginning, middle and end in their RRJ. We will use this to retell the chapter in group tomorrow.

Pandas: The students finished writing about a title for chapter 1 in their RRJ and creating a vocabulary entry for a word from their unknown word lists for chapter 1. For HOMEWORK they need to read chapter 2 and list unknown words and questions they have.

We ended the day by reviewing and identifying observable properties of objects. Then we identified which properties could be changed without altering the makeup of the object.